Page 87 of Born to be Wilder

“Well? What do you see?” Marge asked, her breath in my hair as she leaned over my shoulder. “She got a long life line? What’s it say? We talking decades? I need to know if I’m gonna be making fun of her when she’s a shriveled-up 110-year-old prune and the doctors can’t pull her face back up anymore. I’ve got a lot of material saved up for her centennial.”

Madame Cecile ignored her, her fingers stroking my palm in a way that should have made me uncomfortable, but a strange sense of ease settled over me.

“You’re at a crossroads,” she said.

I chuckled. “Aren’t we all, darling? It’s Mardi Gras. I’m just trying to decide between a Sazerac and a Hurricane.”

“Yeah. Everyone is at a crossroads. Not a good start,” Marge said, and Sylvie elbowed her in the gut.

Madame Cecile didn’t look up. “Not like this. This road leads to two very different paths. The easier road is the shorter path. The harder road is the longer path.”

“So, go the easy path and it’s shorter.”

Madame Cecile looked up now, a shake of her head. “You don’t want a shorter path.”

I understood suddenly what she meant by a shorter path.

The air in the room felt different suddenly. Thicker.

Her gaze returned to my palm, and she gripped it tight. “You know how to fight. You’ve always known how to fight. But now you need to choose which battle to fight.”

I didn’t even know if it was what she meant, but a question popped into my mind.

My identity or my life?

I said nothing.

Sylvie had gone very still beside me.

The silence stretched.

“You’re stronger than the choice in front of you,” she said. “And your strength comes not just from within, but from outside.”

Madame Cecile looked up, her gaze sliding across the faces of my widows.

“Use every strength in your fight. Internal. External. If you fight the way you know you can, you will win. But do not take long to decide your path, for it will then choose for you.”

Doris gasped.

I pulled my hand back like she’d burned me. I set both hands in my lap and pressed them flat against my thighs and looked at her over the crystal ball, heart pounding as I kept my voice steady despite my frazzled state. “Thank you. That was very—yes. I’m good. That’s plenty. Thank you.”

I stood up.

“Alice—” Sylvie started.

“I need some air.” I was already moving toward the beaded curtains. “Take your time. I’ll be right outside.”

I pushed through into the noise and heat of Bourbon Street, walked six steps, and stopped. I stood in the middle of all that color and sound and let myself be invisible for thirty seconds inside a crowd that was too busy celebrating to notice one woman whose life was shattering around her.

It will then choose for you…

I breathed in. Breathed out.

A brass band rounded the corner two blocks down, the trumpet cutting through, drowning out everything else, including my own thoughts.

I pressed my lips together and looked up at the balconies and the beads and the impossible blue of the sky above Bourbon Street.

How did I know which path was the right one?